Promoter Expects Crowd of 12,000 For Kovalev-Pascal

By David P. Greisman



Approximately 12,000 people are expected to come out for the March 14 fight between light heavyweight titleholder Sergey Kovalev and hometown star Jean Pascal at the Bell Centre in Montreal, according to Jean Bedard of InterBox, who says that ticket sales are going well.

 

“We started very strong just before Christmas,” Bedard said on a Feb. 24 media conference call. “As you know, nothing happened here in January or February because of the cold weather we had. I would say that we had a great day yesterday of sales and we’re thinking about 12,000, which is very good for the venue. We’ll see. We’re looking to have very good sales in the next three weeks that we still have in terms of promotion, as usual, while the heat is on, while we start talking about the fight, while the boxers are available for the media. We’re looking for a good turnout on March 14.”

 

The fight will air on HBO in the United States and on pay-per-view in Quebec, with the latter perhaps affecting the ticket sales, Bedard believes.

 

“The issue is the experience on TV is getting better and better. From what we saw five years ago to today with all the access, with the big screens on TVs, sometimes people prefer [that] instead of going up in the building in the upper bowl at $50, they prefer to buy it [on pay-per-view],” he said. “And so we have stronger and stronger pay-per-views.

 

“We’ll have a very good crowd,” he said. “We hope that we make it go 15. Depends on the next three weeks, and if we can have a little bit warmer weather … the economy will go again. We’re very comfortable that there will be a very nice crowd on March 14.”